In simple form, this is what Bp. Emilianos received from Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra on how to find a real, ontological, existential connection with God.
Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra “Two years ago, within three or so months, I came very close to dying three times. It made me realize that by now I should have been dead, and that God’s Mercy has kept me alive only to pass on to everyone around me what I personally received from my Elder [Aimilianos], from my spir itual father.”1
The essence
What we’re trying to teach is how to cultivate a specific kind of prayer, the ‘Jesus Prayer’ (or how it is commonly called ‘the noetic prayer’) that will get you a real, ontological, existential connection with God. If your heart is in pain, you can speak however you wish, but if you speak to God as you would to a friend or a spouse, it won’t lead you to the deep, noetic prayer that connects you with God on a spiritual level. At best, it may help release psychological tension, but it won’t establish a Divine Connection with the True God and it won’t assist you in experiencing Him.2
Our goal is not dispassion, discernment, foresight, or any other specific gift. Our goal is to draw nearer to God and become One with Him. In fact, our goal is not even to do God’s will—our One and Only Goal should be God Himself. When God comes, He brings everything we need along with Him—all of the above—perfectly tailored to benefit us and those around us. And these come not because we sought them, but because we sought Him. If we were to achieve This, we would attain dispassion. It might not be constant—temptations may still come and go—but that’s not what truly matters. What matters is that we know how to activate the Connection. We know how to "flick the switch” for the Light to come, meaning we know where and how to place our nous to Commune with God. That’s what truly counts… Sometimes we think it is impossible to reach the spiritual heights of our Church Fathers and Mothers, but it is not. This is the purpose for which we were created. In fact, if we do not achieve this, we fall short of our calling—we have failed. God did not create us to be nothing nor does He make mistakes. God created us to attain His Image and Likeness, to become gods by Grace. Even those with families and demanding jobs can achieve these spiritual heights.3
The Path: Keep your focus on God (prayer) without thoughts (nepsis, watchfulness)
Question: What is the difference between watchfulness and the Jesus Prayer?
Bishop Emilianos: Nepsis [or watchfulness] means denying every thought to present our inner self, vacant and available, to God. However, you cannot leave this space empty—it must be filled with something. We fill it with prayer, specifically the Jesus Prayer in the practice we are discussing. These two work together. They are distinct and yet they work together. We cannot practice nepsis alone and leave the intellect blank. If we do, the devil will quickly occupy it with something “interesting” to deceive us, as he has done since the time of Adam and Eve.4
Of course you have to reject all thoughts and silence your mind to pray, but the focus is prayer. When the focus is prayer and not silence, you can pray even in the midst of a thunderstorm.5
“Once, there was a child who was given advice on how to be a perfect Christian. He was told what he should and shouldn’t do, with examples from history and the Saints. He was incredibly sad though because he could not recall everything he was supposed to do, let alone fulfill it. They told him they would summarize things and this made him happy. He learned the summary by heart and set out to fulfill everything. As the years passed, and despite how hard he tried, he couldn’t succeed in keeping all the rules they gave him. He went to his spiritual father and said: “Father, I can’t fulfill all these things. There are so many [little rules] and I’m so tired, do you have something easier?”
His spiritual father told him: “Just be silent; keep your tongue silent, your mind silent and do not allow your attention to wander away from God. Once it wanders and you realize it, bring it back to God. So if you’re in pain, don’t say “I’m in pain’ and think about it, because your attention, your intellect, will move away from God; your attention and your intellect should only focus on God.”
“At the beginning, the young man thought he wouldn’t be able to do such a thing. After two years of this practice, he realized a strange thing had happened. By practicing the one thing his
spiritual father had told him, by keeping his attention focused on God, he had in fact fulfilled all of the other things he once tried but could not do. He remembered the anxiety he had around the long list of things he was initially prescribed, and now, without consciously trying, he read the list and realized everything was done. When the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we realize that He does everything and we don’t need to struggle to make things happen”6
Elder Aimilianos goes on to explain: “By practicing watchfulness, we essentially fulfill all the commandments—both those of the Old Testament and those of the New Testament. Sometimes we ask: “What is God’s Will? What does God want from us?” but God is not an enigma. He is not something obscure that we can’t find. In fact, He is very clear, and we should know exactly Who He is”7
“Watchfulness is also called ‘purity of the heart,’ because we throw away everything that’s unnecessary in order to prepare our heart for Christ to dwell within it. Purity of the heart is not just the absence of evil thoughts, words and deeds, but it’s the power and the energy of the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ dwells in our hearts and makes it His Throne.” This is something created by the Holy Spirit, it’s not something we achieve. When we practice watchfulness, our hearts grow cleaner, allowing the Holy Spirit to open the way for Christ to make our hearts His throne.8
Question: In a recent talk, you mentioned that the first stage of watchfulness is katharsis–meaning purification or cleansing. Are there stages that follow?
Bishop Emilianos: According to Elder Aimilianos’ explanation of Saint Hesychios, the steps are as follows:
1. We begin practicing nepsis (watchfulness).
2. Over time, it becomes a good habit.
3. With the Grace of God, watchfulness grows to be more frequent and consistent.
4. We reach a stage where we can peacefully observe the inner spiritual war within our intellect.
5. This leads to prayer deepening and developing into a sweet, peaceful state of mind.
6. Finally, we arrive at a Christ-like condition—union with Christ.
While katharsis [or purification] may not be a specific step, it develops naturally throughout this process.9
Keeping on the Path in Daily Life
“Nepsis (watchfulness) means denying all thoughts, refusing to converse with them, and setting aside distractions, achievements and activities so that we can focus entirely on prayer." This doesn’t mean neglecting our responsibilities. It means that when we pray, we keep our mind peaceful and clear. At the same time, we must fulfill our daily duties attentively and effectively. Blaming watchfulness for a lack of focus at work or negligence in completing our tasks is nothing short of a lack of discernment.
Elder Aimilianos continues: “The Jesus Prayer is the deepest tool we have to accompany and sustain our watchfulness. Our mind cannot remain blank; it needs to focus on something—and that something is the Jesus Prayer. To approach God, we need the combination of watchfulness and the Jesus Prayer.” “Practicing watchfulness is like walking the narrow path. What do we mean by narrow path? It’s to narrow our mind to focus on one thing: the Jesus Prayer. Both must be continuous, not once-off; otherwise we won’t get far.”10
Elder Aimilianos uses an example and says: “Some monks in the monastery have their duty to make bread. They start making bread and an earthquake suddenly happens. They get scared, they run outside, there is a lot of talk about the earthquake—some say, ‘we should do a Blessing of the Water Service.’ Others say, ‘we should chant a Supplicatory Canon.’ And after one, two, or three hours, they go back to the bakery but it’s too late for the bread. It’s destroyed and they have to start from the beginning. This is what happens with watchfulness. You can’t give it up for a period of time and then go back to it by continuing from where you left it. Going back means that you have to start from scratch. That’s why once we start, we should stay there. This is how it grows and develops, and this is how we also grow spiritually.”11
Saint Sophrony gave this advice to a doctor who questioned how he could pray unceasingly when his work required his full attention. Unceasing prayer is not about constant words but keeping your heart open to God all the time by thinking God is there and watching.12
It’s not wrong to think—God gave us our brain for a reason. What we need to avoid are the thoughts that distract us during prayer.
However, if you want to maintain watchfulness and keep your mind clear to focus on God beyond the time of prayer, then thinking can become an obstacle. That said, when you’re working, studying, or doing any task, thinking is necessary. Whether you’re solving a problem, doing your job, or learning something new, thinking is essential. We need to think to succeed in our work, support our families and take care of our responsibilities.
If you can maintain spiritual awareness while thinking, that’s a different story. But when thinking is needed, like when you’re solving a problem or working, you must allow yourself to think. Thinking is a natural and necessary part of human life—it serves and fulfills us in many ways.13
Elder Aimilianos says: “Sometimes we might have a thought, something like: ‘The Elder is cunning,’ and I respond with: ‘This cannot be the case. This answer to the thought is my thought.
Instead of kicking out the thought and rejecting its entry into my heart, I’ve started having a conversation with it.”14
This is the beginning of the fall. When I understand that I have fallen into the trap of talking back to my thoughts, it usually leads to wasting time and losing the battle. We will never be more clever than the temper who has millennia of experience. We should simply stop the conversation by ignoring the attack. But like we said before, it’s so tempting to talk back to the thought, and because of that, we struggle to ignore it and move on. The temptation to engage is strong. This is why watchfulness is the secret of our spiritual life.15
It is important to confess recurring thoughts, even if you don’t talk with them. Why? Because their persistence indicates a weakness or an issue that needs addressing, which your spiritual father can help you with. If these thoughts keep returning, there’s a reason, and ignoring them won’t solve the problem. Make your spiritual father aware of them.
Sometimes, simply confessing these thoughts can make them disappear. Other times, you might need to make a few changes in your life to prevent them from recurring.16
If we’ve done something wrong, we ask for forgiveness, we forget about the past and we move on. We can’t live drowning in our mistakes; we have to live with God. If we focus on the past and on our mistakes, we can’t focus on God. We can’t focus on two things at the same time. And focusing on what we’re doing wrong is self-centered. We need to focus on God Alone.17
If we do not leave our past behind and continue to dwell on it—thinking about things that are no longer present and that hold us back—we will never be able to focus on Christ, practice watchfulness, or move forward. Proving this, we have the example of Lot’s wife from the Old Testament. In this story, before God destroyed the city that Lot and his family were in, He told them to leave and not look back. Lot’s wife disobeyed. She looked back as God was destroying the city, and because of her disobedience, she turned into a pillar of salt. We should never look back, not even on our mistakes. We learn and move on.18
We should not fear sinning. What do I mean? We are human–we fall, we acknowledge our fall, we confess it, and we move on. We can confess potential falls, but either way, we move on. No one is perfect, and if we think we’re perfect, we’re deceiving ourselves.19
“Sometimes in confession, we say to our spiritual father: “This person caused me difficulty and did this to me, and I lost my peace.” Our brother may have been wrong, but in focusing on that, we lose the opportunity to prove our patience and to move closer to God. Confession is not about what others have done to us, it’s about our own actions and responses. Regardless of what others do, we must do our best to overcome difficulties and move on.”20
So, what’s the solution for our limping society, misguided attractions and character gaps? It is simple: God. God is our spiritual answer to all things non-spiritual, be it psychological (I am not referring to severe clinical cases here), emotional or attractional gaps. The spiritual (not psychological) approach to life is straightforward: focus on God. Focus on God, not on your psychological gaps, acknowledged or not. Focus on God, not your emotional gaps, known or yet to be discovered. Focus on God, not your attractional gaps, whether you are fully responsible for them or not. In essence, it doesn’t really matter whether we know ourselves or not. Even if we discover all our gaps, what truly matters is that we focus on God. Watchfulness, believe it or not, is all that matters in life. Watchfulness will help us cultivate prayer. It will also protect our prayer along the way so we can safely, quickly and permanently connect with God, Who can empower us to face ourselves without any fig leaves, and mend or fill any gaps we might have, whether known or unknown to us.21
First we will see God and then we will find the strength to see ourselves. This is how disgusting we are, and we need God’s Grace to be able to accept what we will see in ourselves. And even then, if we don’t have love inside us, we will just deny God’s Will altogether, like Adam and Eve did in Paradise. When they saw that God realized what they did, instead of running back like the prodigal son, they blamed God like the prodigal son’s brother. Neither of them took responsibility because they didn’t want to accept the knowledge of themselves or admit that they disobeyed their Creator.22
We must recognize our spiritual, psychological, and physical limits. If we push ourselves beyond what we can handle, we risk burnout, losing our connection with God, or leading a double life—appearing pious toward our spiritual father while struggling internally. God knows what we can offer and He never asks for what we don’t have. To have an honest and proper Relationship with Him, we must know and respect our limits. In this lies the foundation for spiritual growth, performing miracles and protection against despair—the devil’s most powerful weapon.
I will add a final qualification. It’s good to push ourselves, and we must—but we should only push ourselves to just a little less than our limit. Why? If we push too far, we might exhaust ourselves completely and be left without any strength to manage unexpected temptations that arise along the way. Keeping a small reserve of energy helps us face temptations and setbacks. Doing as much as we can—and a little less—will help us grow steadily and overcome sudden challenges without setbacks.
Back to the text, Elder Aimilianos continues: “When practicing watchfulness and prayer, we must guard ourselves against tiredness and despair, while being comfortable with the effort we apply when pushing ourselves. If something feels suffocating—making us want to scream or break free—it’s a sign that we are neither comfortable nor happy, and indicates spiritual, psychological, or physical fatigue. When the soul is exhausted, spiritual growth becomes impossible. We step off the path to Eternal Life and risk wasting precious time." As Elder Aimilianos used to say: “A tired person is useless to God.”23
You have a problem and you don’t have a solution. You pray and a lot of thoughts enter your mind. You need to follow your heart (we’re not referring to emotions here). This means to follow whatever is more peaceful inside you. Whatever is more peaceful inside you is where God wants you to go. So it’s not what makes more sense logically, but whatever direction gives you peace and comfort. That’s what you should do in order to find God’s Will in your life. Even if it’s wrong, because you followed the peace inside you and you have the will to do the right thing, the right thing will eventually present itself.24
If you are searching for God’s Will, it is found within inner peace—nowhere else. While this isn’t our main topic right now, it’s so important that I need to elaborate briefly. If you’re trying to make a decision and lack inner peace, then God is ‘not present’ in that choice for you—unless you’re someone who struggles with anxiety, in which case nothing feels peaceful. But if your gut senses peace in another option, regardless of whether you like it or will need to deny yourself, that’s where God is, and this is what you should do. When you feel this peace and
have this “information,” you can take it to your spiritual father and share how God has shown you His Will.
This isn’t an easy topic to explain, but I’ll try to illustrate it with an example of what it is to have the peace of God within you. There was a monk on Mount Athos whose duty was to serve in the guest house. One day, three visitors came—one from Canada, one from America and one from the UK. They sat in conversation and the monk explained to them how to achieve inner peace. At the end of the conversation, the monk asked: “Do you understand?” One of them responded: “I do, because the peace you have within you was transferred to us while you spoke.” Now, that’s spiritual peace. It’s not something psychological.
If you visit a guru, on the other hand, you might notice an outward calm, but his heart could be like a brick—lacking in love and humility. Whatever "peace"he appears to have cannot be passed on to you. And if he were to draw on the devil’s power to offer you some form of peace, you wouldn’t feel calm; you’d feel anxiety. Why? Because the devil cannot transmit true spiritual peace.
To achieve another kind of peace, you could take a Valium, but that’s just your body relaxing. It has nothing to do with the peace of your soul or the Holy Spirit. These are different forms of peace.25
To be continued…
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